OUTDOORS: Cell phones, walkie-talkies invade the woods

The message was overheard by my hunting partner and neighbor in Pennsylvania who had a two-way radio receiver plugged into his ear.

It crackled over the airwaves from about a mile away on a high meadow that could be seen from our vantage point. There’s a reason for the blaze orange clothing requirement. We could spot those guys from that far off.

We were sitting together in his ground stand on the first day of the Keystone State deer season, when doe, if you had an antlerless permit, became legal game.

The use of two-way radios, or walkie-talkies, as some still call the gizmos, was perfectly legal. The information about deer heading toward a member of their hunting party was not.

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According to Pennsylvania game laws, you can use portable two-way radios or cell phones for “general communications” with another hunter, but they may not be used to “direct or alert another hunter of the presence of live game or wildlife.”

Yeah, right. These guys are only discussing religion, politics or where to go for pizza after the hunt. Of all the conversations I’ve overheard, since I don’t use the radios myself, almost all are telling other hunters where deer are seen, where they may be headed, and to “get ready.” Sure enough, 99 times out of 100 after such a message, shots are heard.

I own a set of hand-held radios but only used them once. I find them too distracting in the woods, not to mention I got damn tired of hearing “he’s down” from some lucky hunter who just felled a nice buck.

The radios, however, serve as a valuable communications tool after said deer is on the ground, especially for those of us of a certain age where dragging a deer could invite a coronary.

There are usually five or six of us spread over 400 acres and we pretty much know where everyone is standing or sitting. The radio works to alert anybody who already has his deer, or is near the barn, to get the four-wheeler to help take a deer out of the woods.

They also, like ATV’s (not my favorite sound in the woods), are valuable in emergency situations.

But it seems some guys just can’t stop being Chatty Cathys in the boonies, reporting everything seen, or not, from squirrels to annoyed blue jays.

And now it’s gone beyond the radios to those contraptions that allow you to send text messages. Thankfully, cell phones or gadgets named after fruits or berries don’t work in the neck of the woods I hunt.

However, there are plenty of places they do.And in the wide-open spaces of Kansas, where mountains are not likely to interfere with cell signals, wildlife officials have had to remind hunters that it is indeed against the law to send text messages on the whereabouts of deer or other game. Cell phones for a heads-up are the same as radios in the eye of the law.

Sending a text message means your head is bent down concentrating on the message, while perhaps contemplating that your thumbs may fall off in 20 years.

And while your attention is focused on the idiot device you probably paid too much money for, a 10-point buck waltzes by in front of you unnoticed.

Concentration and patience is the key to deer hunting. I admit the latter is not my strong suit, but I can concentrate hard enough to turn a stump and twigs into a buck’s rack.

I asked Dave Chanda, chief of the NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife, about our laws regarding electronic communications since I could find nothing in the summary of hunting rules regarding same.

He e-mailed back and said there are no rules in New Jersey, thus you can chat away and no doubt send GPS directions to the quarry at hand.

No thanks. I still rely on the sound of shots and from what direction, that’s high alert enough for me, not to mention I can hear a mouse dancing on a ball of cotton. I hear a deer before I see it on many occasions.

2013 CHANGES

The black sea bass season will be open from Jan. 1-Feb. 28 for the first time since 2009, according to Fish and Wildlife. The limit is 15 a day at 12.5 inches. Didn’t it used to be a split season with a 25 fish limit?

Shad fishing, commercial and sport, will be closed except in the Delaware River its tribs and Delaware Bay. Limit is three fish.